Taking Liberties
by Morosetintedglasses
Summary: Norrington molests ten year old Elizabeth.


"Oi, don't be squeamish. I need to practice for my husband."

"You don't even have a husband!"

"I will!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Whossis name then?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but his name is Captain James L. Norrington of his Majesty's Royal Navy, for-your-information."

"Norrington? Gah! But he's old enough to be your father."

"Don't be silly. My father's _much_ older than he is. And anyway, it doesn't matter. I can't just marry some young rogue with no money and no connections. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to."

"Why's that?"

"Because he wouldn't take care of me."

"Oh, I'm sorry, you're too much of a proper lady to take care of yourself. Always falling down and having salts put up your nose."

"Am not!"

"Wot? Not a girl?"

"I-I-you're just jealous."

"How can I be jealous? It's not like _I_ could marry him."

"But you _wish_ you could. Molly!

"Priss!"

"Don't call me that! My husband will beat you up."

"Oh yeah, well my dad can beat _him_ up."

"Don't be silly. You don't even _have_ a father."

"Do too!"

"Then where is he?"

"He's a merchant sailor."

"You didn't answer my question."

"No, you're just too stupid to know that I did."

"And how is that, Will-yum Turner?"

"He's a sailor so he's never just in one place. He travels all over the world, and one day he's going to come here and take me back with him."

"Oh _please_. Then why hasn't he come yet? Why does he let you work for drunk old Mister Brown? Sounds like even if you _do_ have a father, he doesn't care about you much at all."

"That's not true! My father loves me, he's just…he's just…"

"He just what—too busy raping and pillaging to visit? You know what I think? I think your father was a pirate and your mother was just too ashamed to tell you."

"Was not!" He pushes her. His face is bright pink like a piglet's.

Elizabeth pushes back. Will's young head thumps the ox-cart they've been hiding behind with the soft thud of over-ripe fruit falling on a table.

Breath hitching, he gapes at Elizabeth in disbelief. His hands fly to grasp the back of his head, and then the repressed sobs burst violently into hot tears and bawling.

Elizabeth scowls, wrinkling her nose and screwing up her mouth. Her hands are firmly planted on hips.

"Fine. If you're not going to be any help."

With difficulty, her tiny fingers navigate the unfamiliar laces of Will's frayed, secondhand breeches. To obtain a better view, she kneels in the dirt, bringing the laces just below eye-level. Finally, she succeeds in unlacing them, and tugs them to his knees.

"Now what am I supposed to do with _that_?"

"ELIZABETH!"

Governor Swann is greeted with such an alarming tableau as to make his breakfast threaten rebellion—the Turner boy crying with his breeches around his knees and Elizabeth kneeling before him.

He grabs Elizabeth by her arm and drags her to the house at a pace that is deliberately too fast for her ten-year-old strides to match. Somehow her desperate, deadweight stumbling contributes to his sense of justice in the matter. His rational mind knows she's not resisting, just stumbling along unable to keep pace with him, but despite that it _feels_ like she's resisting and a disobedient little girl like her would do so anyway. He tightens his grip and scolds her for her insolent dead-weighting.

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"I am aware you're not her suitor, Captain, though I've not missed the attentions you have paid to her."

"Sir, if I've done anything improper—"

"Nonsense, I was just about to say that I've no doubt that one day you will be a proper suitor for a woman of my daughter's station. I have been following your career since you were assigned here and I must say that it's been rather impressive. A post-Captain before thirty, on the fast-track to promotion, and I've no doubt that you'll be promoted to rear-admiral someday."

"Thank you, Governor."

"Don't thank me. And for God's sake dispense with the formalities. You've no one to impress right now."

"Sorry sir."

The governor shakes his head, but still wears a good-natured smile on his face.

"Anyway, you're a bright young man with much potential, but unfortunately I must inform you that and further attentions toward Elizabeth would be a waste of your time."

"Might I ask why?"

"Well, you already have, so the question seems a bit frivolous. But yes, I shall answer. I have decided that Elizabeth is nearing womanhood, and this can be a very dangerous time for young ladies of her station. So, to prevent her feminine impulses from ruining her prospects, I have decided to send her back to England to attend a finishing school."

Norrington swallows. "Forgive me for speaking plainly, but isn't that a bit drastic? A well-bred girl such as Elizabeth should have no problem deflecting male attentions—though her beauty must attract much of it."

"One would think."

"You say that as if my statement has become an irony."

The Governor says nothing, just directs his eyes beyond the horizon.

"Did something prompt your decision?"

"She and the Turner boy they…spend an inappropriate amount of time with one another. I tolerated it when she was a girl, but children discover their animal drives so early these days."

"Indeed they do." He says more wistfully than he had intended. "—But that is no just cause to send her to a finishing school."

"What would you have me do?"

"I don't believe that it is my place to say."

"You've already expressed your objection to my decision, so I would like to hear an alternative."

Norrington swallows. This sounds like a trick. Like when he was a midshipman and the Captain would put on his gentle voice and ask him rhetorical questions just before caning him.

"Really, I _would_ .i like to hear your opinion. It would break my heart to send her back to England."

"Well, I believe that some appropriate attention from a proper gentleman might turn her away from her baser desires. Once she's known the wheat, she won't want go back to the chaff, so to speak."

The governor clasps his hands behind his back, rubbing his thumb in his palm. Must be a displacement gesture.

Norrington's fingers nervously play piano scales in his pocket. He has his own displacement gestures.

"I can see your reasoning, Captain."

He traps a swelling _aaaaannddd_ under his tongue.

"And I believe that it's an excellent idea."

Norrington sighs, but wishes that his relief hadn't been so audible. Though the governor seems oblivious enough, as usual.

"I'll call on my friend Lord Drury to spend some time with her. I hear that he is a marvel to hear on the harpsichord."

"_O_-oh. L-lord Drury? I was unaware that he intended to court her." Not quite a crack in his voice. More like a chip. He hadn't known that Lord Drury had intentions toward her. But now that he's competing with him—but Lord Drury would certainly be marrying up for Elizabeth, any sensible girl would know that. More money. His family has its hands in international trade. And of course he's got something which Norrington could never aspire to give Elizabeth—a title. Though he would. If it were possible, oh God, how he would. He would die for her, but in an instant he has lost her.

The governor raises an eyebrow. "Don't be so anxious Captain, I was only joking. You are of course my first choice. After all, should you receive your promotion, you would be an excellent match for my dear Elizabeth. Not to mention, nobility tends to lack a sense of honour, though I know you to be an honourable man, and I trust you to be honourable with my daughter."

"Thank you. Though I could only aspire to be worthy of your daughter's affections. She is such a beautiful girl."

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That servant is driving Norrington to madness. Finally, a moment alone with his dear Elizabeth, only to have it spoiled by a damned fussy matronly servant. Hadn't Governor Swann said that he trusted him? Then why send an escort? Oh yes, he'd mentioned something about protection from thieves or what have you, but Norrington could easily defend himself and Elizabeth from a common thief, and though she's a broad, ruddy old wench, her only weapon against bandits would be that grave-rot breath of hers. And she couldn't even bite them—though she looks like she could gum viciously. No, that woman is a pair of eyes always watching watching watching…An idea strikes him—smartly.

"Mademoiselle Élizabeth, aimeriez-vous vous débarrasser de ce serviteur pour que nous pouvons être seuls?"

_Miss Elizabeth, would you like to get rid of this servant in order that we might be alone. _

"J'ai comprenais pas, er, Capitaine."

_I had used to comprehend not, er, Captain._

_Ah merde_.

"Voulez-vous être seul…avec moi ?"

_Would you like to be alone…with me ?_

"Seul ?"

_Alone ?_

"Oui, seul."

_Yes, alone_. 

"Je ne compris 'seul'. Quels sommes la 'seul'?"

_I not comprehended 'seul'. What are they the 'seul'?_

"Vous et moi. Pas la serviteur."

_You and me. Not the servant._

"Serviette? Tu veux du serviette? Mais nous allez manger—er, tard."

_Napkin ? You wants some napkin ? But we is going to eat—er, later._

By now, their conversation has captured the attention of the servant, who is no doubt listening curiously for cognates. Or if nothing else, it must seem rather curious that Norrington is earnestly entreating something of Elizabeth in French.

Norrington looks at the matron and smiles. "Impromptu French lesson. Those conjugations can be quite challenging."

"Of course, sir." She says dubiously—though perplexedly. And that's where Norrington's advantage lies. He knows that the ignorant are easily persuaded when they don't understand what's going on. They'd rather keep their mouths shut than admit that they don't know something.

Norrington's been thwarted, so he must try something far riskier. When the servant politely excuses herself (presumably to take a squat in the bushes) Norrington whispers to Elizabeth.

"How about we get rid of your servant so that we can have some real fun?"

Her eyes brighten, "Really? Are we going to tame a tiger? Or better yet. I can be a jungle girl raised by wolves and you can be a handsome anthropologist come to study me."

"Something like that, yes."

She grabs his hands and his cock jumps. They're tiny as a porcelain doll's but soft and hot and eager. "How?"

"When we get to the beach, pretend to have turned your ankle. Then I'll send her to your house to find a splint and some bandages."

"Which ankle should I pretend to injure?" Her voice is imprudently loud.

"Whichever. It doesn't matter." He whispers, hoping she'll match his volume.

"Yes it does!" She matches it—and multiplies it by a power of ten.

"Will you lower your voice, please!?"

She drops his hand, and clenches her fists at her sides. Her bottom lip juts out and her eyes narrow as she glares at him as if he were the cruelest of tyrants. But very quickly her iron resolve collapses, as her breathing hitches with repressed sobs and her eyes begin to water.

He could watch his own leg being hacked off with a carpenter's saw with no anesthetic but adrenaline and well-schooled military stoicism, but somehow watching her, his dear Elizabeth, crying is too much for him. He's torn between two equally sensible urges: to hold her or to slap her.

He settles on the former. He bends awkwardly at the waist, after all she is little more than belt-buckle height, and lays a heavy hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry." She tenses under the touch, then hurls herself forward against Norrington's hard body. He's taken quite aback by her response—it's been the object of his fantasies for years—but now that she's here, in such an exposed, precarious situation, he finds himself quaking with fear—and repressed desire. What if the servant were to come back at the instant to find them in such a compromising situation? Would anyone really believe that the well-bred Governor's daughter had thrown herself on him? _And why_ _was she crying, Mr. Norrington?_

The servant emerges from the thick undergrowth, picking leaves out of her hair and looking thoroughly miffed. Norrington wonders if she's been listening. In that case, he would have probably heard the initial approach—probably. Norrington wishes he had been in the army—at least then he'd have sharper ears for land.

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"OH! Oh—it hurts!" With much flailing of the arms, Elizabeth throws herself onto the sand. "Oh, I think I _turned my ankle_." She turns to Norrington and winks.

Norrington resists the urge to plant his face in his palm, pondering the wisdom of entrusting something so crucial in the hands of a ten-year-old girl.

"Pash, Miss Elizabeth, quiet that squawking before someone hears you. It's not proper for a lady to be seen thrashing about like a fulsome she-bitch."

Norrington shivers at the thought of Elizabeth writhing, bestial, so small but so vicious. There's spirit in her, the spirit of an animal pinned under the bigger, the stronger, Man the conqueror, who swept across the broad ocean like a cyclone, conquered a continent, burned across the plains, and in their place planted his boots like the trunks of soaring oaks.

When Norrington was a boy, he'd catch squirrels. Not with his hands, mind you. But he'd bait a fishing hook with a lump of stale bread and tie the opposite end of the line to a tree. While waiting, he would lie on the grass watching the clouds, straining to see airy wisps of tall-ships drifting languid on the sky, a fair wind in their cloudy sails. Then, he'd get a bite, and a squirrel would screech, writhing, desperate to extricate himself from the hook pierced through its cheek. Carefully, he would nudge the thrashing creature into a burlap bag with the toe of his boot. He would then take the it home, close his bedroom door, cut the line, and let the squirrel run free.

It would dart about disorientated, screeching madly. And then the game began. He would try his best to stomp on the squirrel. Ah yes, it would evade him many times, but that made the game more interesting—as he sweated and cursed and the moment of his victory swelled up in his mind like a tidal wave, until finally he'd crash down like a boulder. Sometimes he'd step on its head, or its chest, and it would die instantly, but sometimes, he'd only crush it from the waist down, and it would squirm, pivoting around its crushed legs, like the half run-over squirrels he'd see in the road.

"I believe the lady has injured herself," he says, matter-of-factly.

"Don't mind her a moment, Captain. Miss Elizabeth is fond of making up wild stories. You'd best ignore her."

"Now wait a moment, as a soldier I cannot overlook any injury. If she's broken something, a clot can travel straight up to her heart, making it pop like a festering pustule."

The servant looks hopeful. The prospective death of her snobbish charge must be a welcome relief. Norrington wants to slap the old matron for thinking it. It's in his rights, but Governor Swann, notorious for his soft treatment of the help, would undoubtedly take offence to it.

"—And, no doubt, it would be unfortunate for a young heiress to die, but even worse for the families of the staff the Governor has hired to look after her. She'll be in heaven, and I fear that those poor dears, with no bread, will follow soon after."

This sufficiently startles the smile off of the servant's face.

"Now, lift up your ankle Miss Elizabeth."

"No, it hurts too much. Come look at it yourself," she says, petulantly. She's going to be a right priss when she gets older. But as a child, she's manageable—and that's all that Norrington need concern himself with.

"My apologies Miss Elizabeth."

He kneels before her, and takes her delicate foot into his hand.

"I'm not sure that this is quite pro—" the servant raises a weak protest.

"And I'm quite sure that the governor would take a dim view of someone prioritizing propriety above his daughter's life. That's a servant's objection."

The matron is sufficiently abashed, wringing her dough-puffed diabetic hands over her apron, and muttering in whispers barely distinguishable from breaths.

Gently, he lifts her foot and unlaces the shoe with one fluid tug on the shoestring. He feels like a proselyte kneeling before an impassive girl-goddess. He begins to shake with such ecstasy of spirit, like his forefathers Abraham, Moses—those gnarled Hebrew fathers who squatted in desert and communed with the terrible thunder of God with composure.

He slips off the shoe, revealing stockings clinging to the nuances of her foot. Sweat slips down his forehead, splashing salt into his eyes.

"Agh—" he starts at the sting, "—God, this is terrible."

"What is it?" Elizabeth and the servant ask in unison.

"Fractured. We need a splint, clean linen bandages—"

"—Oh, no! I don't want to die. I'm sorry Captain, I was only fak—"

"Shh, child, you're making yourself hysterical. And you need to remain _calm_ in this situation."

"—But I'm not hurt. I promise—I—"

"—She's panicking. Go to the house and secure as many medical supplies as you can. And don't rush, as adequate treatment is far more important than time."

The old matron looks relieved as running might cause the old girl a violent apoplexy. "Yes, Captain." She bundles up her skirts, and bustles to the house on her short, chubby legs.

"Am I going to die, Captain!?" Elizabeth wails. "I don't want to die!"

"Shh," he soothes, "let me see."

He takes his seaman's knife out of his waistbelt. Elizabeth starts, panting like a frightened mouse. She covers her eyes with her hands, blonde curls tumbling over her face. Norrington suddenly becomes very afraid that she'll scream—and all at once he's aware of how exposed the beach is. They're below the tidal shelf, and if he bends, it could conceal them, but he won't be able to hear anyone approaching. It's a precarious privacy, more dangerous than the open beach really. He might become lost in the illusion of security, lose his alertness, and all it would take is a single pair of eyes on the beach. He has to hurry.

"Quiet now, dearest Elizabeth," her hands drop at the endearment, and she cocks her head to the side, as if something has chafed her oddly—something she'll instinctively recoil from, but be unable to assemble into words. "I'm just going to take a look at it." She nods, warbling tears making her quick, brown eyes all the brighter.

Starting at the toes, Norrington cuts a slit in the stockings, carving up to her ankle—there he stops and holds his breath, as if about to dive underwater, then lifts her skirt and slices the fabric to the knee. He parts it with his fingers, as if peeling away a desiccated husk, revealing new skin, birth-wet and nubile, a secret skin that only he can touch. And he strips off the stocking, leaving one shivering leg bared for him.

Tenderly, he lifts her foot, tiny as a hairless kitten in his palm, and yet, as one who holds something so fragile in their hands, he's shaking with the impulse to crush it. But the military has trained his body into wire-frame discipline. And his cock juts proud, rigid as iron. He could rut against that china doll foot and come his guts out.

He runs his rough fingers over the leg (skin against skin, like lightning connecting them) a serious expression pasted onto his face, masking the lechery of his hands.

"Ouch," she says.

He starts, horrified, perking his ears for the sifting of approaching feet on sand.

"Your hands are so course. They're scratching me." This irritates him. This rejection. He's suddenly conscious of the roughness of his whole body—gravel stubble, sea-chapped skin—she'd probably rather have that soft Turner boy touching her.

Tersely, he spits "My apologies."

"And anyway, I didn't really fall, I only pretended like you asked, so I believe you've had sufficient time to examine me, as any injury I've sustained must be minor" she says, imperious as ever. But Norrington can hear the fear quaking beneath that shrill veneer of haughtiness.

"Yes, you're going to be fine."

"Thank heaven. I can't die yet. I haven't even married. Father says that one day I will marry a titled gentleman with loads of land. But—"

"—I'm sure he does." Norrington says darkly.

He's really losing patience with her. He was much happier when she shut her mouth. She's really such a common girl. "Your father told me that you've been inappropriately playing with Mr. Brown's apprentice." It's a gamble, but he's certain that her father had been alluding to some sort of pre-adolescent sexual play.

"That is not his place to tell you, nor your place to bring it up, _Captain_." She says, his title becoming a curse, like "sirrah" in her mouth. She must be embarrassed. He shouldn't have asked so baldly—but now he knows that his conjecture had been correct.

"You're right, Miss Elizabeth, it is not my place to ask. Though why you would stoop to such common fare—I cannot imagine."

"I was not stooping! I just wanted to practice!"

"Practice?" Now Norrington is genuinely curious. Thank God, it means that the object of the play wasn't that dirty blacksmith's apprentice.

"Nothing. F-forget I said anything."

"For what were you practicing? Tell me" he says firmly, in the low voice he uses to extract confessions from ill-behaved midshipmen.

"F—for my husband." She chokes, as if the confession had been wrung from her threadbare heart.

His hands begin to shake, and every muscle of him is taut as in the tentative restraints of catapults—before they hurled forth stones that razed civilizations. He wants so much to strike her—he could hurl her like a rag doll, she's so small. But no, he should be angry at the governor for lying to him. He had implied that she was not yet betrothed! Now Norrington will never have her—this is his moment. His one moment. He had better make memories to last his whole wretched life.

"Captain…" she asks, panic quaking at the base of her voice.

"Let me give you a proper lesson, then." And the utter release within him, it's like the fierce liberation of battle, of the man crawling into himself, the beast that rustles his scales under the skin of all men rippling forth, the rough hacking of limbs, that clean thrust through a man's belly—

She's squirms to stand up, but the stockings bunched around her ankles bind her effectively. With one crushing hand on her chest, he holds her down, and with the other he unlaces his breeches, shoving them to his knees. His cock's the center of his body—the rest of him only pivots around it.

"Stop it!" She screams, and he panics.

"Shut up, you stupid girl!" He covers her mouth with his hand. She bites him with her tiny rat teeth.

"Damn it!" He slaps her with the offended hand.

She tenses into a ball and sobs hysterically. Not taking any chances this time, Norrington bunches the sleeve of his frock coat over his hand, and smothers her mouth with it.

"Quiet! If anyone sees you like this, you'll be ruined!"

And this only makes her cry harder, but the actual sound projected is no louder. He has her sufficiently stifled. He wonders if she can breathe.

He swings a leg over her, his powerful frame easily straddling her shoulders, and on a mad impulse, he withdraws his hand and savagely stabs his cock between her shuddering, half-opened lips, and those little jaws so tight around him, the bed of her mouth so warm and welcoming, he falls forward onto his palms, and rams his cock to the base of her young skull--

Too deep!--he rams against the hard wall of her throat, but he comes, just the same, in a violent paroxysm so painful it feels as if it's been torn from him—just as she clamps down her teeth.

Tumbling backward he whispers hoarse, "You cunt! You stupid fucking cunt!" and his whole body wants him to scream it to shut out the blinding agony hammering in his cock.

Elizabeth jerks onto her side in a convulsive spasm—and vomits onto the sand.

"Miss Elizabeth?"—He recognizes the matron's course voice, not more than ten meters away. "I'm sure we're close."

"Well, find them soon. I've patients to attend to."

Norrington's blood freezes at the voice. The governor has sufficient pull to call in Port Royal's leading physician from his scheduled visits and if he sees that Elizabeth's uninjured, they'll suspect…

"Now don't tell anyone, Elizabeth. You're not a maiden anymore, and if your father finds out he'll dump you in some drafty convent to die and you will never have a husband."

"I don't want one anymore," she whispers. He ignores her. She's not screaming for help—that's enough for him.

Hurriedly, he laces up his breeches, shaking fingers doing no service to his expediency.

Breeches secured, Norrington grabs her foot, twisting it savagely until he hears a sickening crack.

Elizabeth shrieks, sending the doctor and the servant scurrying over the tide shelf.

"I'm glad you've come, doctor. I think she's broken her ankle."

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"What are _you _doing here?" Will scowls at her, still smarting from that argument they'd had so many months ago.

"I wanted to see you…and I'm sorry. Your father is a good man if you say he is."

"Fine," he says tersely, but very quickly his expression softens. Will is ill-suited for spite. "Where have you been?"

"Ill."

"Oh."

"Willia—Will."

"Yeah?"

"Would you be my husband some day?"

"I—er—I—" he stutters, afraid it's a joke. Afraid she's found him out and it going to make fun of him. "…yeah." He's no good at lying.

"You promise?—No matter what!?" She entreats with an earnestness that alarms him.

"Yes! Yes! I promise!" he assures her, afraid of whatever it is that's upset her.

"Thank you."


End file.
